2020 Fighting Injustice Scholarship Winners

Congratulations to the winners of the Finz & Finz, P.C. 2020 Fighting Injustice Scholarship! This year’s winners are Mehak Sukhera, Dustin Dutchuk, and Britnee Blake. Each year, the Finz & Finz, P.C. scholarship fund competition is open to high school, undergraduate, and graduate students who are U.S. residents currently attending or planning to attend law school. This year, the first-place winner received a $1,000 scholarship, second place $500, and third place $250.

Applicants were asked to write an essay that answered the following question:

How have the events of 2020 impacted the fight against injustice
and uplifted those who face unfair disadvantages?

First Place

Mehak Sukhera, a 15-year-old high school student from Rockville, Maryland, won first place for her essay. Sukhera, who attends public school in Montgomery County, Maryland, wrote that social injustice is why unjustifiable acts are committed in society. She believes they take the form of discrimination, ageism, homophobia, abuse, climate justice, refugee care, healthcare, and gun violence.

“Despite the promising modern world, why do scenarios of injustice occur?” Sukhera wrote. “One of the most significant things to note is that people are always asking for justice, but do they ever get the justice they deserve? It’s overwhelming to process the fact that many innocent lives have to go through terrifying forms of injustice. Therefore, to fight against injustice, we need to educate ourselves of the past, of the history of the tribes and communities who have been facing injustice and oppression for years. In order to change the future, the most important aspect would be to focus on the implementation of learning from the mistakes of the people who lived in the past.”

Second Place

Dustin Dutchuk, a first-year law student at DePaul University in Chicago, took second place. Growing up in North Dakota, Dutchuk wrote that he was not exposed to much racial diversity. “I took it upon myself to expose myself by studying and living abroad, attending diversity events, and now living in one of the most diverse cities in the United States: Chicago,” Dutchuk wrote. “If I had never left North Dakota and never exposed myself to culture and different livelihoods, I would be oblivious to the problems America faces.”

Dutchuk wrote while it’s easy to look at the negative that transpired in 2020, we should focus on the sense of awareness and community that has occurred through the fight for racial injustice. “It is a ‘we’re all in this together’ outlook that we, as Americans, need to uplift and carry on in order to make the changes that need to happen,” he wrote. “The events of racial injustice that have occurred this year have been especially impactful due to the aftermath of their nature. People are tired of seeing tragedies like this happen, and people want change.”

Third Place

Third place went to Britnee Blake, a student at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Florida.

“When the masses found out about the fate of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement was rejuvenated,” Blake wrote in her essay. “This is the first time some teens are seeing such a movement in real-time.”

Blake wrote that technology and social media make it easier than ever to find out when and where racial justice protests are. “The quick access to information has made gaining supporters to fight for injustice fairly easy,” she wrote. “Also, this rise of digital activism provided the confidence and resources for people to become community leaders.”

Spring 2021 Scholarship Competition

Check back soon. Finz & Finz, P.C. will begin accepting entries for the firm’s Spring 2021 Scholarship Competition in February 2021.